Long-simmering anger at the owners of the decrepit Vail Court apartments boiled over Monday at a meeting where city councillors moved to shut down a commercial parking lot they called likely illegal and potentially dangerous.

Brutal, unrelenting snow and cold is inspiring some new thinking about traffic and cars – even a demonstration of open-mindedness on considering whether people can reserve their street parking space spaces.

Formal nomination papers aren’t filed with the Election Commission until the end of July, but lawyer Kim Courtney has announced that she is running and put up an extensive website explaining her platform.

Limits on e-cigarettes and smoking in larger public parks were voted in Thursday by the City Council, but some exotic tobacco sales will still be allowed, and businesses offering outdoor hookah use can go on doing so.

A proposed $131.5 million revamp of the King Open School and surrounding public buildings gets a neighborhood meeting Thursday evening, after the City Council approved a $1.5 million feasibility study.

Smokers invoked the Declaration of Independence, social justice and the specter of recent police killings of people of color to argue against restrictions on smoking in public places heard Monday before the City Council.

It’s a little less than a year until elections, but Mayor David Maher is in full campaign donations mode – surging far ahead of any other sitting councillor by amassing a bit less than $34,190 in just a month’s time.